instructables Building Your Own CNC Router/milling Machine by Trochilidesign Already when I was little I was thinking of making a year of my bachelor in Industrial Design, so I was machine which could make things! A machine which confident enough to start a build. The real difference would give me the opportunity to create products for between now and 5 years ago was, I learned to work in and around the house. Years later I stumbled on with metal on manual milling machines and lathes the words 'Computer Numerical Control' or more and above all I had the right tools to design a specifically the CNC milling machine. After I found machine. out people were able to build one themselves in their own shed, I knew it! This Instructable will show you how I built my CNC For three months I tried to find the proper parts (A milling machine. I know a lot of CNC dreamers do not dremeltool, drawer slides, pieces of wood, etc.), but I have the knowledge or tools to build a full metal didn't really know how to build a CNC. The idea fell machine. I still think and hope this Instructable into oblivion. inspires you to make your own machine. I include all of the necessary steps I went through in designing In August 2013 the idea to build a CNC milling and building this CNC milling machine. machine captivated me again. I just finished the first Building Your Own CNC Router/milling Machine: Page 1 Step 1: The Design and CAD Model It all started with a proper design, in my case a few machine. sketches to get a good feeling for the dimensions and shape. Quickly after the sketching phase came the Since I'm a lover of good designed tools, I tried to CAD model. I created my model in SolidWorks. If you make maintenance and the possibility to adjust things plan to design your own machine I recommend a on the machine as easy as possible. Bearings could parametric CAD-modeling tool. Your machine will have been integrated in the machine, but I chose to most likely have a lot of parts which have to fit place them in separate bearing blocks (in case it together neatly, sometimes with some strange needs to be replaced in the future). Keeping your dimensions (for example pre-ordered parts). After all machine clean is very important too, so guiderails are the parts were modeled, technical drawings were all accessible (in case of the x-axis by detaching made. I used these drawings to machine all of the some cover plates) custom parts on the manual lathe and milling Step 2: The Frame The frame provides the machine a rigid basis, not Since the frame sits beneath the worksurface dust only to place it in your workshop but also for working could fall down on the guiderails (you want to keep on. To the frame the gantry will be mounted on sliding them clean, more about that in step 5). To prevent rails and later on a work surface. It also houses the this, dust covers were made and mounted around the stepper motor and spindle for the x-axis. I constructed guiderails. A angular profile mounted with brass my frame from 2 Maytec 40x80mm profiles, 2 milled t-nuts onto the may tech frame and 2mm endplates (both 10 mm thick aluminium), 4 corner aluminium plates mounted in the milled pockets on pieces and a square structural piece. the endplates. All of the profiles are sawed right-angled and afterward milled exactly square. With the corner On both endplates bearing blocks are mounted for the pieces a heavy (well relatively lightweight; it's all spindle. They were hand milled and lathed to the right aluminium) frame was bolted together. The square tolerances. On the front endplate mounting slots for frame made from the smaller profiles were mounted the stepper motor were milled with 4 milled blocks (aluminium) on the inside of the Maytec profiles. Building Your Own CNC Router/milling Machine: Page 2 6 3 4 5 3 2 1 2 1 1. Milled parts for dust covers 1. Dustcovers mounted 2. Linear guide rails; discussed in step 5 2. Linear guiderails with the runner blocks slided on 3. Maytech Aluminium 40x80mm extruded profile 3. The square structure assembled and mounted in the 4. 40x40mm aluminium profile for a rigid structure frame 5. 90degree angle pieces 6. Lots of T-slots for T-nuts. Mounting things to the frame is just peanuts 1 1. Dustcover Building Your Own CNC Router/milling Machine: Page 3 Step 3: The Gantry The gantry is the bridge between the x-axis guiderails Most of the work I planned to do with the CNC and supports your milling motor above the workpiece. involved milling aluminium parts. An average vise for The higher you make it, the thicker the workpiece can the machine would be 60 mm high. Since the thickest be. There is however a disadvantage of high gantries. blocks of aluminium easily available for me would be They work as levers on the guiderails and on the 60 mm high as well, I chose to space between the other hand the side plates tend to bend more easily work surface and the piece of metal, which could hit by making them longer. the workpiece first, to be 125 mm. This gave me a starting point for the side plates. Since I wanted the formed out of an 5mm thick U-profile. It is mounted center of an end mill hovering over the center of the between the side plate with the help of two simple runnigblocks (from the machines side view), the side mounting blocks. On the inside the U-profile houses plates had to be placed at an angle. Solidworks the y-axis spindle. Which is again supported by the helped me to convert all of the measurements into the same bearing blocks used for the x-axis. They are final parts. Because of all the complex dimensions I mounted on the outside of the side plates. decided to mill these parts on an industrial CNC mill, this also gave me the opportunity to round all of the Beneath the main frame a plate was mounted on the corners (would have been very hard to mill on a underside of the gantry's side plates, giving a manual mill). mounting point for the x-axis spindle nut. The part which supports the y-axis guiderails is 1 1. Sideplates of the gantry; they were CNC milled on an industrial machine. Building Your Own CNC Router/milling Machine: Page 4 Step 4: Last Movement The last movement is what I call the end is floating behind the mounting plate for the Stepermotorhousing for the z-axis (plus the z-axis milling motor. The spindle nut for the Z-axis was itself of course). It is constructed out of a frontplate directly bolted on the mounting plate for the milling mounted on the y-axis linear guiderails, 2 motor. reinforcement plates, a motor mount and a backplate. The backplate provides a spot for the y-axis spindle On the front plate 2 linear guiderails were mounted for nut to be mounted; it is mounted on the inside. the z-axis onto which the Mountingplate for the milling motor was placed with the runner blocks. All of the custom mechanics are now ready. The CNC is assembled with the guiderails, spindles and a lot of The motor mount has the bearing for the z-axis bolts ;-) spindle fitted into it. So I didn't use a bearing block for this spindle and is only supported on the top. he lower Building Your Own CNC Router/milling Machine: Page 5 Step 5: Guide Rails Since your endmills need to move in 3 directions, the support is recommended. machine guides them with its guide rails. The guide I chose the most expensive option; profiled linear rails provides the machine its rigidity in all directions guide rails with runner blocks. The are designed to except the one it moves in. You want them to let the receive forces in all directions. In the third picture you machine only move in the preferred direction. Any can see the looping bearing balls, they are positioned backlash in other directions results in inaccuracies in on both sides of the profile. All with a tangent 45 your workpieces. degree relative to each other, giving it the ability to On my machine I wanted to use guideways supported handle high loads. on the full length of the rail, reducing the risk for deflections on the longer axes. To get all guiderails perpendicular and parallel to In my opinion some kitchen drawer slides are each other they were all aligned with a dial indicator preferred above the hardened steel rods which are (with a maximum difference of 0,01 mm). If you spent supported on the end (yes! they will deflect). Since your time on this part, the machine will perform very you are constantly fighting the forces from the well in accuracy! endmills against the material of the workpiece, a lot of Building Your Own CNC Router/milling Machine: Page 6 Step 6: Spindles and Pulleys The spindles translate the rotational movement from drivenut which reduce friction and are approach a the stepper motors into a linear movement. When backlash free system. You can order the drive nuts building your machine, you can choose between here: http://www.mixware.de/index.html\ three different version; leadscrews or ball screws, either in metric or Imperial configuration.